To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion.
quote by Mikhail Bakunin

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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But Don't Despair
Despair, if you must –
But how's it going to pull you through?
Despair, when you trust
Naught since then there's naught to do.
Despair, should you thrust
Aside your pride, your self-esteem.
And so despair, if it's dust,
The only substance that you deem.
Despair, when a gust
Of slightly breeze can break your stance.
And do despair, when lust
Is your interpretation of romance.
But don't despair, if you can care
About the plight of any other being.
And you can focus on the help,
Support, and altruistic further actions
For the seeing. Be believing,
As despair will start receding
All around – simply since you found
A way to steer you clear
From this: the very cause of your despair!
So give to others; give them all a helping lift:
Despair, you'll find will disappear –
And that has got to be a well-deserved
And saintly gift!
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
Rain of despair
despair despair despair despair despair despair despair
despair despair despair despair despair despair despair
despair despair despair despair despair despair despair
despair despair despair despair despair despair despair
despair despair despair despair despair despair despair
despair despair despair despair despair despair despair
despair despair despair despair despair despair despair
poem by Mark R Slaughter

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Gen Despair
Despair -
When hope is snuffed out like a guttering candle.
Despair -
When hope is sadistically excised with surgical precision.
Despair -
When hope is torn from a half-living body in huge gobbets
By rapacious beaks and ravening teeth.
Despair -
When hope is annihilated.
poem by Mill Field

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My Despair Comes And Goes
My Despair comes and goes
It is not the ultimate despair,
The despair of those who have forever lost hope
The despair of those who have lost what they never will regain
The despair of those for whom there is no way out
No way to begin again
No hope in any way forever
My Despair comes and goes
It is a small Despair compared to many others
When I am in it of course
I believe it like theirs Hopeless forever hopeless
But then a new day begins,
Or a friendly voice says a friendly word
Or something good and positive happens
Or the weather changes
Or some hurt goes away
Some sign comes
And slowly slowly
I am not there anymore.
My Despair comes and goes
It is not the worst Despair
Not yet-
Yesterday I was in Despair
Today I am almost already not
I pray my writing this
Will help some despairing reader feel
They too will hope again.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: (1) It's completely impossible. (2) It's possible, but it's not worth doing. (3) I said it was a good idea all along.
quote by Arthur C. Clarke

Submitted by Catalin Popescu
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Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: 1- It's completely impossible. 2- It's possible, but it's not worth doing. 3- I said it was a good idea all along.
quote by Arthur C. Clarke

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sonnet XXVI: I Ever Love
To Despair
I ever love where never hope appears,
Yet hope draws on my never-hoping care,
And my life's hope would die, but for despair;
My never-certain joy breeds ever-certain fears;
Uncertain dread gives wings unto my hope,
Yet my hope's wings are laden so with fear
As they cannot ascend to my hope's sphere;
Though fear gives them more than a heav'nly scope,
Yet this large room is bounded with despair;
So my love is still fetter'd with vain hope,
And liberty deprives him of his scope,
And thus am I imprison'd in the air.
Then, sweet despair, awhile hold up thy head,
Or all my hope for sorrow will be dead.
poem by Michael Drayton

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Learning is always rebellion... Every bit of new truth discovered is revolutionary to what was believed before.
quote by Margaret Lee Runbeck

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My personal influence in the Revolutionary Governing Council is such that the dictatorship of the proletariat is firmly established, since the masses are backing me.

To One Across The Way
When at your window radiant you've stood
I've sometimes thought-forgive me if I've erred
That some slight thought of me perhaps has stirred
Your heart to beat less gently than it should.
I know you beautiful; that you are good
I hope-or fear-I cannot choose the word,
Nor rightly suit it to the thought. I've heard
Reason at love's dictation never could.
Blindly to this dilemma so I grope,
As one whose every pathway has a snare:
If you are minded in the saintly fashion
Of your pure face my passion's without hope;
If not, alas! I equally despair,
For what to me were hope without the passion?
poem by Ambrose Bierce

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I Chose Hope
I chose to hope again today
To believe in beauty,
In sunsets,
In the rain
I chose to laugh again
To dream,
To dance
And to sing with abandonment
I chose joy instead of despair
Smiles instead of many tears
Colors replaced the dull
And a rainbow filled my vision
When all around me I could not see
And when the coffee was toxin in my blood
When the world was full of trouble and nothing else
I chose hope
Hope discovered,
For a while undecided
Hope now declared
Hope
I chose to dream of a better day
To wish for things unseen
To search for the unimaginable
I chose to place my hope above
Hope not in mans strength or ability
Not in political systems,
in racial tribalisms,
in ethnic loyalties
Birthed out of a love that endures all things,
I chose hope that never fails
Hope for today and hope for tomorrow
I chose hope
poem by Jessica Nobubele Frame

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Despair Of The Early Morning
DESPAIR OF THE EARLY MORNING
Despair of the early morning
Despair of the darkness
Despair of the Despair
Despair of Old Age
Despair of the road closed
Despair of nothing to do
Despair of nowhere to go
Despair of endless errands
Despair of money running out
Despair of the message of Despair
One transmits to those one loves.
Despair that has to be resisted
Despair that the light of the day
Will help me overcome
Despair I will pray my way out of
Despair I will in the course of the day
Sometime overcome.
Not the great Despair
The unending Despair
The final Despair.
The small Despair of who I am and where I am now.
The Despair that still can be resisted,
By the writing of a few awkward lines
Early in the morning.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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The Streets Of Desolation And Despair
Everyone's gone now
And we're walking in the steady but irritating rain
And in your eyes
They have the marks of being tear stained
The streets of desolation and despair are at our feet
And the wind blows on this night of nights
Yet the lights from the lamp posts still work
We walk along the streets of desolation and despair
And if anyone were still out here
They wouldn't utter any words
They wouldn't utter a care
Because they don't care in their hearts
poem by Justin Gildow

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The origin of the absurd idea of immortal life is easy to discover; it is kept alive by hope and fear, by childish faith, and by cowardice.
quote by Clarence Darrow

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A revolutionary idea is usually one with its sleeves rolled up.
quote by Navjot Singh Sidhu

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I love the idea of a woman being able to discover the idea of power this way, on such a scale. And I don't know about that, what it means - well, I guess I'd better, or my part's in trouble.
quote by Mary McDonnell

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Almost everyone who has had an idea that's somewhat revolutionary or wildly successful was first told they're insane.
quote by Larry Page

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Despair Is Darkness
DESPAIR IS DARKNESS
Despair is darkness-
Despair is death inside and death in the world and death in one’s own sad soul-
Despair is no way out -
Despair is the place where one is forever stuck -
Despair is the realization that one has done what one could – and one is not going anywhere else-
Despair is the admission of failure-
Despair is no sign of help anywhere around-
Despair is so much lost-
Despair is one‘s life is over-
Despair is regret-
Despair is the sense that one will never have the time to have another chance -
Despair is ‘it’s finished’-
Despair is no way out-
Despair is going down and more down and more dark and more afraid all the time -
Despair is the scream which hurts and does not stop the hurting -
Despair is the understanding that even Death will not save one -
Despair is that the pain will never end-not even with death.
Despair is no way out again and again and again- without end.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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It is my opinion that everything must be based on a simple idea. And it is my opinion that this idea, once we have finally discovered it, will be so compelling, so beautiful, that we will say to one another, yes, how could it have been any different.
quote by John Archibald Wheeler

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What is Hope?
Never was a larger word
than Hope;
all dreams reside there;
In the Future,
resides our desires laid bare;
our Now wants to go there
our Past wants to be washed away
or celebrate there-
inside Hope's Cathedral.
Hope is the Promised Land.
both Means
and Destination.
But, what good does Hope do
if it goes away
after
what we hope for comes true?
Is there not another dream then
that Hope must then fulfill?
But, here we ask
what then is Hope itself?
Is it my Expectation Confident
that what I want
will come true?
Is it merely that Leap of Faith
that all that currently ails
will dissipate
in my hoped-for future state?
If all is risked on this single word
then we must know exactly
what it is;
for me
what is Hope's meaning for me?
Well the Expectation idea
that Hope is the confidence that
want I want will come true
is too much for me.
I don't have that kind of confidence
do you?
Nothing for me is ever for sure
not even Hope
itself
because, as we all know, Hope can
give way to Black Despair where
by definition Hope has gone
and fled.
Since no one can read our future states
we bob and weave between
hoping for hope
but fearing despair.
I rather like the Leap of Faith Idea
where we all make
the assumption that actions now,
will in future state,
pay off
and Hope will fulfill the expectations
we have placed there.
But note,
it is all too true that Hope
then is fully based
on Leaps of Faith
and then we ask
faith in what?
If all of Human-Kinds Hopes
distill from Human-Kinds Dreams
then upon what faith did cavemen
dream of a better world?
Upon a pagan God,
restless shadows on the cave wall,
incantations said and made?
But the pointed point here is
that our ancestors did have
blind faith in something which
caused them to feel that dreams
they dreamed
had some Hope of becoming Real
and that Hope
had to involve for them an enormous leap
beyond what they could see
in their lives then.
So Leaping then is what we do
even where there is no evidence
in reality that our dreams
however fervently held
will ever actually come true.
So Hope we see
is bound up with
Mystery
and Leapings
into Voids
with nothing more
than the belief
that in dreaming
it
we can make it come true-
be brought into reality.
Rather like writing a poem.
Humm, the moral here:
Nothing can be done
unless one
has the dream
and Hope
to make it so
and by hoping bring it
into reality.
This seems to be
the true History
of Human-Kind
at its best
and
at its
worse.
poem by Lonnie Hicks

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Plastic Passion
Plastic passion is a hard to handle
Plastic passion is a sold out scandal
Oh it's a plastic passion
It's a plastic passion
Plastic passion is the ladies lover
Plastic passion is the marble mother
Oh it's a plastic passion
It's a plastic passion
Plastic passion is a diamond delight
Plastic passion is the nadir of night
Oh it's a plastic passion
It's a plastic passion
It's a plastic passion
Plastic passion is a hycoscine heart
Plastic passion is a transparent tart
Oh it's a plastic passion
It's a plastic passion
Plastic passion is a gold guarantee
The plastic passion is murdering me
Oh it's a plastic passion
It's a plastic passion
It's a plastic passion
song performed by by Cure

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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